DOGS : TIlEIll MANAGEMENT. 445 



it to be the violent division of a bone into two or more 

 parts. 



Fractures are divided into comminuted, simple, and 

 compound. The comminuted and compound, for the 

 present purpose, may he regarded as one and the same ; 

 since it is obviously impossible to restore the hone of a 

 dog which has been crushed into innumerable pieces; 

 and such a state of the hard structure is scarcely possible 

 to exist without the soft parts, as flesh or muscle, around 

 the injury being involved, or the lesion rendered com- 

 pound as well as comminuted in its nature. 



Then it is simple fractures only that have to be dealt 

 with in this place ; and a simple fracture exists when a 

 bone is snapped across into two equal or unequal pieces. 

 It does not matter at what point the injury may occur ; 

 so that the bone he broken only into two pieces, and none 

 of the flesh be torn, or the joint involved, the fracture is 

 a simple one. In the dog, several simultaneous simple 



